


Pushover

by shelley (jedi_penguin)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-16
Updated: 2010-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedi_penguin/pseuds/shelley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even the staunchest of Watchers have weak spots.  (Set during the summer between seasons four and five)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loneraven](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Loneraven).



> Written for the [Drunken Giles ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/users/lostgirlslair/153909.html). Loneraven wanted happy Scoobies and Giles singing, with no silliness or romance.

AIt had started a few days ago, with a plea from the one person he could never resist.

“Pleeeaasse, Giles.”

“I want to help you out, Buffy, but I’m not sure—“

“C’mon, Giles,” Xander interrupted. “It’s Willow’s nineteenth birthday. Her last year as an irresponsible teenager. Her last hurrah before she enters her twenties. Her last chance to enjoy life ere she turns into a boring old—“

“Thank you, Xander. I get the picture.”

“Yeah, but do you get the point? We want her to have the best birthday ever. Don’t you want that too?”

“Of course I do,” Giles huffed. “I just don’t see how she’ll possibly enjoy this birthday bash at my flat. Wouldn’t she prefer to have her party at the Bronze?”

“But we can’t drink there,” Xander objected. “And with Riley visiting the homestead in Iowa, you’re the only person we know who can buy alcohol.”

Giles frowned in disapproval, causing Buffy to smack Xander on the back of his head. “It’s not just that, Giles,” Buffy pleaded. “You’re Willow’s friend. It wouldn’t be a party for her if you weren’t there, and we all know that you’re not exactly comfortable at the Bronze.”

Mention of his one disastrous visit to the Bronze made Giles cringe in remembered shame. He’d been a fool to go there, as the others had been quick to point out. Before he could think of a proper response, however, Tara gently pulled at his arm. “It would me—me-- mean a lot to her, Mr. Giles. If we had the party at the Bronze, a lot of people from school would show up, and I know Willow doesn’t want that. I think a party here, wi-- with you and the other Scoobies, and nobody else? I think that’s what she wants.”

And so Giles came to the realization that there were two people on the planet that he was incapable of saying no to.

~*~*~

He’d been quite content to putter about in the kitchen while his young friends took over the rest of his flat. He liked cooking and was glad to have a chance to do so for somebody other than himself. Willow and Tara, however, had had different ideas.

“There’s tons of food, Giles,” Willow told him. “Even Xander is stuffed.”

A voice from the other room yelled out, “Am not!”

“Even Xander is stuffed,” Willow repeated firmly. “So there’s no reason for you to hide in here.”

“I’m not hiding!” Giles protested, a little too quickly and harshly to be strictly true.

“Of course not,” Tara said soothingly. “But everything’s done now. Please come and join us.”

Faced with such gentle insistence, there was nothing Giles could do but comply. He sat in the corner with a porter from a San Francisco brewery and watched the others talk and play games. It was pleasant, in a mellow sort of way, and he would have been happy to sit there all evening watching his young charges and reveling in their safety. It might even have happened that way, had one of his friends not made a surprising announcement.

“You took a **mixology** class?!?”

Tara blushed. “It wa- wasn’t th- that big of a deal, Xander. It was ju- just for fun.”

“No, it is a big deal. I liked to call myself a bartender when I worked for creepy warlock guy, but the truth was I just served drinks. The guys who mixed the drinks? They were the cool ones. Gods, even, or at least minor deities.”

Uncomfortable with the attention, Tara ducked her head and tried to cover her face with her hair. Willow was having none of it. “Show ‘em, baby. Giles, do you have any hard alcohol that Tara can work with?”

“Um… yes. Certainly.” Reluctantly, Giles peeled himself out of his comfortable chair and went over to his liquor cabinet. Careful to leave the expensive single malt whiskey behind, he pulled out everything else. Then, for good measure, he went to the kitchen and pulled out all the juices he had in his refrigerator and then pointed at the lot. “Have at it, Tara.”

Blushing and stuttering, Tara soon set to mixing a variety of drinks. Giles watched her heavy hand with alarm, though the others didn’t seem too concerned. Giles wondered whether that was because they weren’t particularly familiar with mixed drinks, or whether they were just used to drinking more than he was these days.

When Tara proudly presented the birthday girl with the first drink, Giles had his answer. Willow screwed her face up for a brief moment and then gave her a brilliant smile. “It’s wonderful, baby!”

Tara smiled in pleasure and offered one to Buffy. Willow shook her head in one quick jerk and Buffy sweetly declined. She had to patrol after the party, and a drunk Slayer was a dead Slayer, and she was certain that Tara would understand.

Undaunted, Tara offered the drink to Anya and Xander. Before Xander could say anything, Anya pushed the drink away. “I am the designated driver, which means that I am not allowed to become intoxicated. Xander doesn’t want any either, because if he has any more alcohol he might become unable to have sex with me when we go home.” She then turned to Xander and demanded, “Can we go home now?”

“Ahn…”

Giles interrupted what promised to be an explicit and disturbing argument with a loud cough. Once the others were looking at him, he smiled kindly at Tara and said, “I’d love a drink, if you don’t mind.”

Willow’s eyes opened wide and she shook her head more forcefully than she had at Buffy. Giles ignored her and reached for the glass. “Thank you, Tara.”

He took a deep drink and somehow avoided coughing. It was way the hell too strong and he no longer had the tolerance that he’d once had, but he couldn’t regret the damage to his stomach lining when he saw Tara’s delighted grin. “It’s wonderful,” he lied.

Tara’s smile became bigger and happier than he’d ever seen it be. “Oh, I’m so glad,” she gushed happily.

Seeing the look on her face, Giles manfully finished the drink and even gestured to Willow to pour her drink into his glass. When Tara made another drink for her girlfriend and Willow slipped him that one as well, he was gone.

By the time he’d finished his third lethal concoction, he was telling the fascinating group story after story from his disreputable youth. After his fifth drink (and he was starting to become alarmed with how much easier each one was to down than the previous one had been), Willow began pleading with him to bring out his guitar and sing to her.

“Please, Willow,” Xander begged. “Don’t ask for that. I still have nightmares from the first time.”

“Well, I want to hear him sing again,” Anya declared. “His voice has a nice timbre and makes me feel pleasantly aroused.”

“Does it indeed?” Giles purred seductively.

Anya gulped, causing Xander to call out, “Hey!”

Before a brawl could begin, Willow put on her resolve face and declared, “I’m the birthday girl, and I want to hear Giles sing!”

When put that way, Xander could only capitulate. Buffy looked skeptical, but didn’t say anything. Tara, Anya and Willow settled back expectantly on the sofa, so Giles could do nothing but sigh and go to fetch his guitar.

By the time he sat down, he’d already formed a rough playlist. Normally he preferred to stay with more mellow classic rock, but the current occasion called for nothing less than the Beatles.

“So you say it’s your birthday?  
Well it’s my birthday too!  
You say it’s your birthday?  
Well it’s my birthday too!”

Willow laughed in delight, so Giles riffed right into “My Generation” by The Who. He tried to beg off singing after that, but Tara brought him another mixed drink to moisten his throat and somehow he wound up launching into several songs by The Rolling Stones.

The next few hours became a blur for Giles, a mellow mixture of music, beautiful young people dancing, and Tara’s increasingly toxic concoctions. In addition to the ones Tara made for him, Giles kept Willow safe by drinking hers and even began putting away Xander’s drinks when the boy asked Tara for a martini. To say that Giles was somewhat tipsy was to suggest that Adam had been slightly dangerous.

When Giles began slurring the words to “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” Willow finally took pity on him.

“I think there’s more danger of the sun catching us still up,” she declared. “I hereby declare the best birthday party ever to be over.” Willow went over to her host and gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Thank you so much, Giles. This was a really nice night.”

“I’m glad,” Giles said softly. “I’m glad you had a nice time.”

“I really did. Now. You’re going straight to bed, and we’re going to collapse on your couch. And in the morning we’ll all help you clean this place up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Giles protested.

“Okay,” Anya said brightly. “We’ll just go home th--.”

Xander silenced his girlfriend with a kiss and mutely waved Giles upstairs.

As the Watcher brushed his teeth and stumbled into his bed, it struck him just how much the others had matured since the binding spell they had used against Adam. A few months ago they would have mocked him for getting drunk, even though that hadn’t been his intention. Not only had everyone avoided saying anything cruel, they weren’t even leaving him with the mess from the party. Yes, they had grown. The youngest of them had just turned nineteen and they were all adults.

“They don’t need me any longer,” he said to the darkness. It wasn’t a maudlin declaration, just a simple recognition that Buffy and her friends had outgrown him and that it was a good thing. And that perhaps he should think about moving on himself.

As Giles fell asleep, he began counting up the things he would have to do in order to leave Sunnydale. He’d start tomorrow, asking Willow to help him catalogue his books. Or, considering the size of the hangover he was likely to have, perhaps the day after.

Decision made, Giles drifted off towards sleep.

The End


End file.
